The Path of Fire and Pain
by Darth Garak
Summary: Sequel to nature of Man: The Reshik system lies in the path of Tyranid fleet. Can a tired Imperial taskforce led by the Inquisition halt the tide and save the system?


The Path of Fire and Pain

**It is the story of a man who did insane things because he put in practice what many Saints have preached.**

+++** Dolan Chirosius** in the _Ministorum Libra Martyr _+++

With sadness filling her heart she stared at the tomb. It was a depressing sight, a monument to the future that awaited them all. She knew death stalked each and every one of them and death was a patient hunter. The tomb was lifeless and grey where once it had been green and teeming with life. Now it was barely holding together, parts of it drifting through the coldness of space.

The planet known as Reshik Primaris was dead.

Commissar Kilian sighed and tried to find the spark of anger that had kept her awake and functioning these last days but it wasn't there anymore. She was too tired to feel anger, too tired to feel despair, too tired to want anything other than peace. She longed for some sleep, to let oblivion take her and sweep away the horrors of life. _Just a little longer_, she thought, _just a little longer_.

Three years had passed since the Crusade Fleet had defeated the Chaos assault upon the Reshik system and they found out what the true threat was. Three years since they had been preparing to stop a flood, a Tyranid splinter fleet which would sweep over the system like an avalanche. Three years to accept that death would claim them all.

Inquisitors Serghar and Kraal had made it plain that they doubted the Tyranids could truly be stopped in the Reshik system. They insisted the splinter fleet was too dangerous. They could only hope to bleed it and buy more time for the Imperium. Kilian had kept her doubts about whether the Imperium would be able to use the time to better prepare itself, it was besieged from too many directions. Henderson however was not so reluctant and claimed that if they didn't stop the fleet here then no one would stop it. Even Serghar could not convince Henderson that there could be no victory. It was an uncomfortable argument to witness, an Inquisitor being challenged on the matter of faith by his own acolyte.

"Don't be a fool Julius" said Serghar, trying to reel in his acolyte "there is no way we can stop them here. We don't have enough ships or men to kill them all."

"We don't need to kill all of them" retorted Julius Henderson "we only need to kill the Norn Queen at the heart of the fleet. Once we break the swarm's synaptic link with the rest of the Hive Mind, they will revert to mere animals."

"There is no way to know how many Norn Queens there are" responded Serghar. "Beside how would we get past the swarm of ships? How could you tell which of the thousands of vessels carry what you seek?"

"Getting past the ships is easy" responded Julius and Kilian saw the fire in his eyes. Julius had absolute faith in the Emperor and in their cause, he was a man for whom the very concept of defeat was alien. "As for finding the right ships" he smiled that wolf smile of his "I am not the only one to have a presence in the Warp."

"You're insane" put in Kraal "to even contemplate challenging the Hive Mind itself." The very idea scared Kraal more than she would ever admit. The Tyranid fleets were always so unimaginably vast that they created an impenetrable disturbance like a huge blocking shadow. This shadow was the dark, impenetrable will of the Hive Mind itself, before which the astral spirit of a puny psyker was as safe as a candle in a hurricane. The shadow cast by the Hive Mind presented an impenetrable wall which prevented astropaths from sending or receiving telepathic messages, stopped spacecraft entering the warp and forced spacecraft already in the warp wildly off-course. As a fleet advanced, the area of the Imperium swallowed up by it simply stopped communicating, giving almost no clues as to what has happened. They cannot be reasoned with, appeased or surrendered to. There can be no mercy from a foe as ruthless and implacable as them. There are only two choices when facing the Tyranids. Kill or be consumed.

"It will destroy you –" she tried to warn him, knowing he didn't comprehend the power of that vast, alien intellect.

"As surely as the daemons battering at the gates of my skull, seeking a way inside" interrupted Julius. "Stop hiding behind words like impossible, cannot be done or anything like them." That comment left both Inquisitors speechless. No one had ever dared to call them cowards but now here was their own creation doing just that. "You stay here and talk of the impossibility of victory and the choices that we must make instead of doing something. Words do not win wars. Deeds do. If you refuse to do this then that is your decision and you may depart from here. I have no use for cowards in the coming battle" spat Julius, his eyes showing nothing but contempt.

"Cowards?" rumbled Serghar and everyone stepped away from him as electricity danced around his hands and power shone from his eyes. "I'm starting to think your fight against the Warp has finally driven you insane."

"You accuse me of being a madman? What right have you to judge what is sane and what is not?" shouted Julius. Kilian began to back toward the door as she saw Julius preparing to strike. His eyes had become black orbs and to gaze into them was to gaze into infinity. "I have fought orks and tyranids on worlds wholly in their grip. I have stood atop the ruined bodies of daemons and foul Chaos Marines. I led the charge the broke the warpstorm over Cloresh III. I killed the Chaos Lord, feeling the stale breath of the grave on my face, the many eyes of insanity gazing at me in a bewildering spectacle of emotions. I have hunted genestealers in the labyrinthine depths of hive cities and triumphed. I have stood before the forces of Chaos and let the Emperor's Light guide me and I have cast them down into the hell they belong in!" Kilian saw Serghar was taken by surprise, he had sought to create a sword for the Emperor and now he was surprised to find the sword was more dangerous than he could have imagined. Serghar had spent the last centuries of his life fighting from behind the scenes, always using others to achieve his goals, never fighting himself. That he fought at Reshik Secundus was evidence of his desperation to cleanse the Chaos filth. He never suspected that Julius would despise him for not fighting. He never suspected Julius would only be strengthened by his trials.

"You are weak. Vulnerable. Human in your frailty. I am strong and yet still you judge me" continued Julius, his face mirroring the contempt he felt. "I have stood within the palace of the Throne on Holy Terra. There my soul was shattered and re-formed, a living weapon forged in the Emperor's will. I am His servant and His sword and no deamon will ever tempt me or corrupt me for my soul is armored in contempt. Let them try to pry open my skull, let them try to steal my soul and turn me upon my beloved Imperium for they shall fail and I shall laugh at their pathetic attempts and delusions of power."

It had taken a week before another council was convened to discuss the prosecution of the coming war. Serghar and Kraal refused to even look at Julius and Kilian was surprised to realize they feared him. All of them feared Julius Henderson, some because he was a pskyer, others because they had seen him fight and knew how terrible he was to behold and yet others because they knew that a man like Julius would lead them down a road full of fire and pain which only a very few might survive, if they were lucky. Julius had wasted no time in taking charge of the planning and soon they all found themselves answering to him, even though he had no rank in the Imperial Guard anymore, nor did he outrank the Inquisitors he served. It mattered not, in the end even the Shadow Warriors took their orders from him. The Inquisitorial ship, _Divine Wrath_, became his flagship while the two Inquisitors went planet side on Reshik Primaris.

When they finally lost all contact with the Astronomican, Julius knew the splinter fleet was near, its shadow cutting them off from the Imperium. They were alone against the coming storm. However, it was not the Tyranids that began the hostilities but the forces of the Imperium. Taking the _Divine Wrath_ and the fastest ships the Navy and the Space Marines possessed, thirty in total, Julius struck the first blow. He caught the massive fleet before the bioships had a chance to awaken from their slumber through the cold void of space. He managed to tear their vanguard to shreds before they reacted, pouncing on the Imperial fleet with terrible precision and quickly driving them back. The fighting was ferocious and as desperate as all battles against such an implacable foe. The _Silent Vigil_ was lost when a Tyranid bioship wrapped it in its tentacles and drew it into its maw, other vessels were lost to boarding pods that unleashed a nightmare of claws and teeth to rampage among the crew or to swarms of creatures that shredded entire ships. In the end, only five ships escaped from the battle, an unknown number of bioships floating dead in space in their wake. Of the five ships, two were quickly evacuated and scuttled, so damaged were they, that there was an all too real risk of them exploding at any moment.

Serghar was appalled by the losses but Admiral Kradel and Grand Master Siegfried claimed the outcome was acceptable. "Victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none" quoted Siegfried. The price was worth the chance to strike at the Tyranids while they were vulnerable. Still, the news of the losses suffered reached the people of the inhabited worlds and mass panic began. Almost overnight, preachers of doom, flagellants and madmen roamed the streets of every hive in the system. They claimed the Emperor had forsaken them, that he cared not for their souls, that he was truly dead atop his Golden Throne and that the Imperium was run by greedy men who cared not at all for the simple man. Upon hearing news of this development, Julius ordered the Adeptus Arbites to shoot anyone espousing such heresy, or listening to it. Marshall Law was declared soon after and the streets were awash in the blood of those who had lost their faith and were overcome by despair. The iron fist of Imperial rule would tolerate no weakness nor would it show any mercy.

However not all of the governors agreed with this iron fisted approach to the situation. Governor Tormell of Reshik Tertiary declared that if these bloody reprisals were not terminated within the day, he would declare his planet to be independent and leave the Imperium. That had not been a very smart move, it would not have been in normal circumstances and it certainly hadn't been smart in those particular circumstances. Julius had sent to the governor a simple, if chilling, message "You wanted freedom. You wanted independence from His divine rule. You felt that the Imperium is perhaps too harsh on its people. You do not even begin to understand the nature of the war we are fighting here. In this time of peril you chose to abandon your fellow humans in the demented belief that you will succeed alone. Then so be it, you will stand alone and fight for yourselves. You will pay for your precious freedom in the currency of human blood. In the currency of the Imperium."

When the Tyranids came, they fell upon Reshik Tertiary first. The planet called for aid, begged for mercy, swore it was still loyal to the Emperor. The population publicly executed the governor and his staff in the hope of proving their loyalty. They gazed into the sky, hoping to see the lights of descending Imperial ships but all they saw was a swarm that came to devour them. As the planet died under the terrible onslaught of the Tyranids, one ship approached it. On board was the man who had sentenced them all to death. He had come to forgive those who had repented.

But only the Emperor could forgive a man his sins against the Imperium and so Julius would send them to Him. "The Emperor will recognize his own" Julius claimed.

He bombed the planet with atmospheric incinerator torpedoes, igniting the oxygen on the planet and turning the whole world into a funeral pyre. The fires swept away cities and fearful civilians, annihilated the swarms that had descended and those too close to the atmosphere. It burned with the power and fury of the sun, reducing the surface to glass and the entire world burned like a piece of amber in space even a month after the attack had been launched.

The Tyranids then swept fully into the system, threatening to drown the Imperial defenders with their unimaginable numbers. They swarmed planet after planet while the Imperial Navy struggled to slow the tide but it felt too much like spitting into a hurricane. As planet after planet was overrun by the xenos, the _Divine Wrath_ would descend upon it and a new star would blaze into the night. The psykers among the Imperial force were driven mad by the overwhelming presence of the Hive Mind and the death cries of entire worlds. The Commissariat found itself extremely busy whenever a planet fell.

The slaughter continued until only Reshik Primaris was the last bastion of Imperial might, surrounded on all sides by the might of the splinter fleet. The defensive positions stank of despair as men realized the futility of the battle. No matter how many xenos they killed, the Tyranids could always replace their losses by consuming the biomass of the dead. The only consolation was that they were denied the rich fruits of the planets themselves. When the Tyranids descended upon Reshik Primaris and turned day into night, it was clear to all that they would be slaughtered. They knew this would be their last battle. The huge laser batteries that defended the planet from invasion opened up, sending pillars of light to stab into the sky. Each hit eviscerated a bioship but for every one killed, ten more would rush in to fill the gap. Mycetic spores and brood ships began to fill the air. Ballistic missiles and air defense guns opened up, creating carnage among the invading xenos. The defense lasers would punch holes in the drop fleet as they sought out the larger ships and the ballistic missiles would explode with nuclear force in the heavens, ripping through the brood ships and killing tens of thousands of Tyranid organisms. Lightning and Thunderbolt fighters tried in vain to destroy the incoming pods. Eventually they began to fall as gargoyles killed the pilots or the engines became clogged with spores. Even the great defense lasers began to stop firing as they were literally choked with incinerated Tyranid corpses. It was simply not enough to halt the tide.

Genestealers and lictors swarmed the defenders from the rear, these infiltration experts making quick runs for the airfields and the artillery batteries. Gargoyles and harridans darkened the sky as they grabbed men or used their bioguns to shred the defenders with thousands of organisms that burrowed into their flesh with manic intensity or melt them with highly corrosive acid. Lumbering carnifexes crashed through tanks and bunkers alike, tearing messy holes through the defenses for the swarms of gaunts that followed. The defenders fought hard but it was a bitter struggle as they knew it could end only in death. In the end the soldiers broke and ran, looking to find an escape that did not exist. Only here and there did a brave pocket of resistance remain, fighting grimly on. One PDF squad managed to hold their bunker for six hours before raveners managed to burrow inside and splatter the walls with gore. In another place, a platoon held its position for an entire day, killing thousands of Tyranids until they ran out of ammo, the ammunition carries having been killed. The men then resorted to using their blades against the swarm – they lasted about thirty seconds.

Reshik Primaris was swallowed by the splinter fleet and every single defender upon the planet was torn to shreds. Inquisitors Serghar and Kraal were among those who fell, their will to go on crushed mercilessly by the monolithic power of the Hive Mind.

That, however, was not the end of the conflict. It was but the bait, the diversion orchestrated by the frighteningly cold mind of Julius Henderson. When he had been questioned about his plan to defend the system, he had replied with sadness in his voice "Men must die so Man endures." In the weeks it took the Tyranids to crush the defenses of the system, Julius and what troops he could carry aboard the remaining ships, waited and watched. He only intervened to kill overrun worlds and he kept his presence hidden. Only briefly did he reveal himself, searching for the Norn Queen at the heart of the fleet. Until, at last, he had found his target.

As Reshik Primaris teemed with Tyranids, a cluster of what appeared to be asteroids finally reached the heart of the swarm after six days of travel. Once they reached their destination they unleashed hell upon the xenos.

The rocks on the perimeter ravaged the bioships near them as the nuclear warheads exploded. Reeling from this sudden and unexpected strike, the splinter fleet was unable to respond properly as the Imperial vessels hidden in the other rocks unleashed their terrible fury. After countless days spent watching their comrades die, the crews were thirsty for blood and revenge. The _Divine Wrath_ kept issuing messages over the vox channels such as "Cowards die many times, the brave die but once" or "What is the terror of death? That we die our work incomplete. What is the joy of Life? To die knowing our task is done." Even when the bioships seemed to close upon them, the day was not lost. Several ships simply exploded, torn in half by another unexpected attack. The Hive Mind focused its might on the presence it felt, on the bright spark that was Julius Henderson.

Its unimaginable power focused upon Julius and crushed him like an Imperator Titan might crush a man, gross overkill. But before the Hive Mind could direct the ships in a precise pattern of death, another one exploded from within as Henderson tore it to pieces with his mind. Once more the Hive Mind crushed him and once more a ship died.

As the battle of wills continued unseen, psykers across the Imperial ships screamed and bled as a powerful mind possessed their bodies, struck at the enemy and fled just before the hammer of the Hive Mind could crush it. The psykers however, already mentally mutilated by the brief possession, died screaming as their bodies were torn to shreds. The Hive Mind possessed a power that only the Emperor could hope to match, but Henderson knew that it could not destroy what it could not catch.

The Imperial and Astartes fleet followed the last orders it had received from Henderson and ripped out the heart of the Tyranid splinter fleet. They must have destroyed the Norn Queen, or maybe Queens, because the Tyranids suddenly went berserk, attacking anything close to them, not caring if they killed Imperials of themselves. The crews could only watch in stunned fascination as the enormous swarm tore itself apart.

All that was left for them to do was to clean up afterwards. Reshik Primaris was destroyed with cyclonic torpedoes, the planet slowly breaking apart.

_Soon_, thought Kilian, _I can sleep_. But first, she needed to know if he lived. With apprehension filling her, she walked toward the medicae facility aboard the _Divine Wrath_. She found Lieuten- no, Major Jones, there. He was holding a data slate in his hand and talking with Henderson.

She stopped when she saw him. His left eye was gone, it had exploded during his hit and run battle with the Hive Mind and so did his left hand. His entire face was burned and a servitor was bathing the raw flesh to keep out infection until the medicae got around to applying synthskin. He had won, as he said he would, but he had paid a price for that victory. So did hundreds of millions of men and women.

"How many ships do we have left?" he asked, his voice weak and tired.

"Out of the one hundred and twenty we had before the nids arrived" said Jones, throwing her a glance "we now have only forty." Kilian winced when she heard the number.

"And how many souls do we have?" asked Henderson, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Jones looked in her direction again before responding and she could see the worry in his eyes. Jones had known Julius for a long time, longer than she did in fact, and he was worried for his friend. True, Julius had been undercover at the time, parts of his mind intentionally suppressed so as not to alert anyone to his presence but Jones still considered the man his friend.

"Not counting the crews we have around six million Guardsmen, one million PDF soldiers, ten thousand Adeptus Arbites and ten million civilians." Again Kilian winced. The Crusade force had been left with twenty million men after the defeat of the Chaos forces and the population in the system had numbered around eighty billion. _Only seventeen million out of so many_, the numbers left Kilian feeling numb. The price they had paid for victory was horrific. It felt more like a slaughter than a victory. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, that so few were alive, that another system had been lost to the Imperium.

"We will avenge our dead" said Julius. Kilian quickly looked at Julius and saw him looking back. His eye was burning with the same fire it had when she had lost her will to fight during the final battle against the Chaos forces. "This Crusade was sent with an objective in mind" he continued, his voice seeming to regain some of its steel "to assault the so called Tau Empire. It is my decision that those orders do not stand any more. The Tyranids are a threat we cannot ignore. I know for a fact that Hive Fleet Leviathan has struck many worlds within the galaxy. They have come from beneath the Galactic Plane and are unleashing unimaginable devastation. As much as I am loathe to admit it, we cannot stand alone against them. No race can. We will seek out these Tyranid fleets and hunt them down. If we can gather other races to our banner then so be it. If not, then Mankind will fight this battle on its own. Even if we do somehow manage to gain allies, any alliance with the xenos will be temporary." His voice was again full of contempt and Kilian couldn't help but smile. His will had survived undamaged by the monumental battle he had fought.

"We have eighteen million people aboard these ships and we will recruit more" he continued. "Conquer the galaxy. Do it not for yourself, but for the Emperor" he quoted. As he talked his voice seemed to fade away and Kilian saw countless worlds burning before her eyes. Cities filled with unfamiliar and alien buildings were burning as iron behemoths fought against creatures out of her worst nightmares. Soldiers and civilians, human and xeno, fought side by side against the ever hungry swarms. She saw acts of bravery, cowardice and sheer madness – and she felt tears stream from her eyes as she realized that no one will know or remember these heroes in the ages to come. She saw Tyranids fall under the guns of the Imperial Guard, the bolters of the Space Marines, the strange guns of the Tau and the Eldar. She saw so many races fighting against the Tyranids that she could hardly believe her eyes. She saw death, she saw victory. Like the hordes of the Orks, the daemons of Chaos and the wrath of the Necrons, the Tyranids would not back down. The galaxy was drowning in blood and yet Mankind still fought. She saw their so called xenos allies abandoning them, running away to defend their own worlds or simply because they refused to fight alongside Mankind anymore. She saw the human race stand alone, as it had always done, as it always will. And she saw even more desperate bravery. Even knowing it was alone, Mankind did not succumb to despair. Instead it picked up what weapons it had and grimly fought on. And as the war with the Tyranids progressed and grew ever bloodier, the other races once more descended upon Mankind like vultures upon a corpse. And Mankind gave them the only answer they deserved – death. As the visions of war burned themselves on her mind Killian saw a small hill made out of the skulls of dead xenos, a flag flying from the top. The flag bore the two headed eagle of the Imperium of Man.

"We will reach them" said Julius as he filled their minds with visions of what was to come "and we shall burn them all. Let them tremble at our coming. Let them quake in fear and despise us for the stars belong to us and we shall have them even if we have to climb over a mountain of corpses to do so."

The Imperium of Man will endure. It will survive. It will be victorious. It will be all these things because it shall exterminate all opposition. Let the Galaxy tremble before the fury of Man.


End file.
